Night Vision Scopes

Hello, I am 16 and am thinking about buying a night vision scope. I was recently at a gun show in Houston and looked into the Russian scopes which are relitivly inexpensive.(around $600) My question to you however is should i get the Russian or American scope? I know the American scopes are better quality, but are they really worth 2000+? Price isn't too big of a deal, but i don't want to break the bank.

Our hunting service uses a lot of night vision and we are the only outfitter in the U.S. that uses color thermal. We are in the field everyday and uses a variety of gear. Please tell me a little more about the type of hunting that you want to do. Are you hunting only at night or do you hunt both day and night?

I would go with the Russian night vision. I say this primarily, because you need to be really careful that you do not purchase USA military grade night vision. USA military grade night vision is not suppose to be sold commercially. My father works for the USA military contractor for night vision equiptment and has had to testify in several trials where a soldier has sold military grade night vision commercially.

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"It's a gun you loaded on Sunday, and shot all week."
-Confederate Soldier

@captcraig mostly varmints at night. The only time I would use it during the day would be at the range.

The ATN MK Aries series is in your price range. The MK 390 at 2.5 magnification for $550 and the MK 410 at 5 magnification for $650. For are cheaper at sites such as Opticsplanet.com. Both are water and fog resistant.

Yukon produces two scopes the Mini Varmint Hunter and the Mini Teactical Varmint Hunter, but both only have 2.5 magnification and are $500 and $600 respectfully. The only difference is the the "Tactical" model adds a picatinny rail and charges $100 for it, so don't buy that model!

Neither night vision will work during the day. They are not night/day scopes. You will have to remove it and put a traditional csope on for range practice and then put the night vision back on for hunting at night. You accuracy will very only a slight amount due to removal and replacement.

Are you open to saving your money a while longer? We use the ATN PS-22. It uses your day scope and simply attaches to the front of your scopes and changes it to a night vision scope. It is gen 2+ and you can use it with ANY traditional scope! But, it does cost about $1800! The nice thing is that you now have a true day/night setup. no accuracy problems as the reticle and accuracy are all in the day scope not the night vision "booster" if you will.

To bad you are so far away, I would have let you try one of the Russian scope befor you bought one and then slod you mine for alot less than $ 600. I put one on a 30-30 an the first thing I found is that they track like crap. makeing mthem very hard to get zeroed, but they do hold zero very well. Mine has a circle with a dot in it for a ratical, not bad, but to large for shots on a coyote much past 100 yrds. I now use gen. 111 gogles and a lazer sight on the rifle, but even with a red lazer the dot is way larger than I would like for nite hunting, I`m looking for a lazer with a 1 moa dot, a 4 moa dot looks like a 10 moa dot through nite vision gogles. A good friend has a good gen. 111 rifle scope and he can get out to 300 yrds. or so with it, with enough lite, but you have to point the gun at your target to identify it and it might be a person. Unless there is alot of moon you will need an IR lite, far more with gen. 1 than gen. 111. It`s not cheap to get setup with a good hunting setup.